University of California (UC) graduate workers agreed to end their strike just before Christmas, coming to terms on deals that raise pay, provide improved benefits for transportation, leave, and health care, and offer protection against bullying and abuse. The stoppage, which lasted 40 days and involved roughly 48,000 workers over 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was the largest academic strike ever, covering facilities that receive over 8% of all U.S. higher education research funds. But although the strike is over, its influence may be just beginning.
William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College
“We’ve seen both inside and outside of higher education, poorly paid and poorly treated workers unionizing,” said Dr. Timothy Cain, an associate professor at the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. “Conditions of work for many in higher education are not great. So much of the academic labor is being done by people on short term contracts, in vulnerable positions.”
The COVID-19 pandemic made these conditions more apparent.
“There were tremendous stresses on the frontline people who were doing the difficult work of re-doing classes,” said Cain. “Loss of positions at a number of institutions happened, so the vulnerability of workers was emphasized. That has, I think, generated more activism and enthusiasm for organizing.”
Another factor was changes in the make-up of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which granted graduate workers at private schools the right to unionize in 2010. According to Cain, graduate unionization efforts stalled during the Trump administration because organizers were afraid of a ruling that would remove unions from private colleges. But under the Biden administration, organizing ramped up again.
Experts agreed that the strike at UC will help propel labor activity on other campuses.
